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De onbekende piloot (Vandersteen comic)/plot
Scotland Biggles is spending a period of leave driving through Scotland when he runs out of fuel. He comes across a young girl painting. She introduces herself as Hedwig Zieroski. She says the nearest petrol station is more than 10 miles away but he can borrow her motorbike. Biggles collects some petrol and returns, by which time it has started to rain heavily. So he takes Hedwig and her bike in his car and look for some shelter. They stop at a B and B. Walking in, Biggles is surprised when a small revolver falls out of Hedwig's rucksack. She explains that a girl walking alone in the countryside needs to protect herself. That night, Biggles hears the sound of a light plane overhead. The next morning, Biggles learns that the girl had gone out for a ride and had not come back. He finds her walking--her bike had fallen into a ravine. He helps her pick it up and returns with her to the inn. After breakfast, Hedwig takes her leave. Biggles remains behind to make a call to Colonel Raymond at Scotland Yard. Raymond has fresh orders: investigate a mysterious aircraft which had crashed in the Scottish Highlands. Raymond sends Major Browstaw to meet Biggles at Lossiemouth to brief him about the case. Browstaw takes Biggles up to the crash site in a Hiller UH-12 helicopter. It is a strange case. The aircraft was an unknown single seater with no engine markings or serial numbers. Even stranger, a lump of uranium had been found on board. There is nothing to learn from the wreckage so Biggles sends Browstaw and the RAF recovery team down. He tells them to publicise the crash in the newspapers. Someone wanted the uranium and would soon come for it. He would wait for him. The third night a man indeed comes and begins rummaging in the wreckage. Biggles holds him up and demands answers. But now a girl appears behind Biggles with a gun and orders Biggles put his gun on the ground and let the man go. It's Hedwig! But Biggles seizes the chance, spins around and grabs the man and retrieves his gun. Biggles now has the man in an armlock in front of him. Hedwig has no clear shot and is forced to surrender. The man explains that he is Stanislaws Lowenski, a Pole who served with the RAF and then later became a British citizen. Hedwig's real name is Hedwig Lowenski, his wife. An unknown foreign power had threatened Hedwig's parents living in Kammergulz, Austria and Lowenski had been forced to pick up the uranium. The dead pilot was named Stefan, also a Pole. He had likewise been threatened and ordered to steal the plane with the uranium and fly it to Europe but he had crashed. Lowenski was to deliver the uranium to the marshes at Nethy and await a pickup by aircraft. Biggles goes there with the couple to lay an ambush. As a light aircraft lands, Lowenski waves from some distance away and pretends to be limping and then falls. The impatient pilot leaves the cockpit to grab the uranium. Biggles makes a rush for the aircraft but trips in the grass. The pilot sees that he is in a trap and rushes back to the cockpit and makes a hasty takeoff but crashes. Fortunately the plane does not catch fire but the pilot is dead. He carries no identification, but there is a damaged tape recording in the aircraft. London Biggles brings Lowenski and Hedwig to meet Colonel Raymond at Scotland Yard. Algy and Ginger are sent to Kammergulz to protect Hedwig's parents. They call back with strange news: her parents had disappeared two months ago and had left no forwarding address. Hedwig now remembers that she and Lowenski started getting threats two months ago. To Biggles this is now proof that her parents are already in the hands of the enemy. The police lab doesn't get much from the tape: only a few phrases, "bring to", "hotel", "ergho", "through the deer", "get message", "only", "04". Biggles decides to play his last card. Lowenski's instructions was to send a telegram to a post office box in London when he had delivered the uranium. So Biggles tells him to do just that. The police watch the post office and follow the man who comes to collect the message. He goes to a house which the police quickly surround. Biggles decides to go in alone first to take the occupants by surprise. He climbs on the roof and breaks into aroom where he finds two men by a radio. He tells them that if a call comes in, they are to act and reply normally. One man tells Biggles that he needs his codebook which is in a bag. Biggles opens the bag and it explodes, spraying him with a cloud of caustic powder! The two men rush to destroy their evidence and escape. Biggles is temporarily blinded but fires at the door, hitting one of the men as he runs through it. The other heads for the roof. He is intercepted by the agents there and falls to his death trying to jump to an adjacent roof. The police search the room and discover only the word "Berghofen" scribbled on a notebook. It is a place in Austria popular with hunters. Biggles tells Raymond to publicise the case, adding that Lowenski had escaped with the uranium. That should mislead the gang and persuade them to wait for Lowenski to make contct before harming Hedwig's parents. Meanwhile Biggles flies to Berghofen and checks in at the only hotel there, the Hirschlein Hotel under the cover of being a nature photographer. Berghofen, Austria In the hotel lobby, Biggles studies the few hotel guests who all seem to be genuine hunters. He considers the fragments of information from the tape: "ergho..." he now understands as "Berghofen" and "04" was probably the man who will take delivery of the uranium. But he is puzzled by the phrase "through the deer". Biggles finds his room door ajar. He surprises Hilze, the daughter of the innkeeper Holsten who seems to be going through his suitcase. She explains that she is trying to put the bag in its proper place but her actions are enough to cause Biggles to suspect that she and her father might be members or operatives of the uranium gang. Next morning, over breakfast on the terrace, Biggles studies the nearby mountains with his binoculars and spots a deer! Shortly thereafter, he sees a hunter tracking it. Biggles declares his intention to go out and take photos. Hilze warns him not to go on the mountain where he saw the deer--there are amateur hunters there, she says, and their stray bullets might be a danger. Biggles ignores this rather blatant warning and climbs the mountain. He spots the trail of the deer and wonders if this relates to the message he has been puzzling over. He next finds a mountain hut. Inside there is nothing except hay but on coming outside again, he sees an unusual fixture: a telephone wire--probably a link to the hotel or the gang's hiding place. Coming downhill, a forest ranger spots him. He has orders to keep people away from the neighbourhood and gives Biggles a near miss warning shot. Back at the hotel, Holsten asks how Biggles' day went and Biggles tells him it went well but he had decided not to go back to the mountain again as someone, probably a hunter, mistook him for a deer and shot at him. Just then, a hotel staff tells Holsten that a call from London had come through and just missed him. The caller would try again in an hour. Biggles hurries to his room and cuts open a bar of soap which has hidden in it a bug which he plants under the Holsten's desk. The bug connects with a tape recorder inside a false bottom in Biggles' suitcase. With the apparatus set up, Biggles is able to listen in to Holsten's call. It's from "04". He says the gang's plans have miscarried and he would depart London immediately. An aircraft would drop him by parachute over Berghofen at midnight. Biggles decides to be at the dropzone. 04 arrives to be met by Hilze. He tells her that Lowenski had not escaped but had in fact been taken into custody by Scotland Yard. They must pull out. Hilze must inform the entire gang to be at their rendezvous early the next morning. Meanwhile 04 plans to deal with Hedwig's parents. Eavesdropping from hiding nearby, Biggles decides he must intervene. Biggles follows 04 to the mountain hut and thinking he is alone, holds him up. But there is a forest ranger behind him with his rifle ready! 04 tells the ranger to kill Biggles but to make no noise so the ranger puts down his rifle to screw on a silencer. Biggles seizes the moment ot break free. In the scuffle, his gun goes off acciendentally, hitting the ranger. He then overpowers 04 and ties him up. Since neither of his enemies can now tell him where Hedwig's parents are, Biggles decides he must get it out of Holsten. Biggles climbs into Holsten's office through the balcony and on stepping in, has an epiphany. There is aa stained glass window in the office with a pattern of a deer. Looking through the eyes of the deer, he seems a set of ruins on a mountain top. "Through the deer!" But now Holsten appears behind him with a gun. Too late, he tells Biggles. If he had figured this out earlier, he might have saved Hedwig's parents. But now he would be a useful hostage in their getaway. Holsten instructs Hedwig to give him an injection which makes him unconscious and he is then dragged in a car to the ruins. When Biggles comes to, he is in a cellar with Hedwig's parents. He assures them that Hedwig and Lowenski are safe and Algy and Ginger would be coming to help but would they arrive in time? Holsten has been waiting for the remaining members of his gang to assemble. They finally arrive and 04 tells them to start their engines while he goes to deal with the prisoners. There seems little hope of rescue but suddenly, from out of the forest, a large force of police emerges. They surround the gang and take them all prisoner. Ginger presses his way into the ruins. On the way, he meets 04 and has to duck to avoid his submachine gun fire He replies with his pistol and wounds 04 in the knee. Biggles is surprised and delighted to see Ginger and Algy. It is high time he says, but how did they manage to find the hiding place? Over dinner, Ginger tells him how: the answers had come from Biggles himself! Biggles had earlier arranged to call them at an appointed time. If he did not do so, that meant he was in trouble. So when Biggles failed to call, he and Algy came to Berghofen from Kummelgulz. They raided the hotel with the local police but all the staff had fled. They searched the place for clues but found nothing until Algy located Biggles' tape recorder. It was still on and had recorded the last confrontation between Holsten and Biggles in his office! Category:Plot summaries